The Editors Weblog will be on a short holiday break. We’ll be back on Jan. 2 2008 with fresh content for the New Year. And starting on Feb. 1, the Weblog will relaunch with a user-friendly and esthetic redesign: readers will still get their share of news and analysis, but in a cleaner layout, with more sharing and networking features, more pictures and a daily email newsletter service. Till then, enjoy the holidays and a very happy New Year!
MTV has joined the Associated Press to launch “Street Team ’08,” a project involving 51 citizen journalists, one for each state and Washington D.C., to cover the presidential race and the next Congressional elections.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 21, 2007 at 12:40 PM
Apple has settled a lawsuit with the popular Apple rumor blog Think Secret, forcing the blog to cease publication. This news immediately triggered a wave of anger in the blogosphere, and raises issues about revealing trade secrets the status of bloggers as journalists.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 21, 2007 at 11:34 AM
The White House 'forced' - formally requested - the New York Times to change the subheadline of an article about the CIA’s destruction of secret interrogation videotapes of AL-Qaeda, published last Wednesday.
Being a quality daily in the US might entail a few things, but does it justify not using the word ‘dick’, when the word is part of the title of a play produced by the Washington Shakespeare Co., and that the Washington Post’s story in which the word is omitted is a review about the play?
Tribune Co. announced Thursday it had completed its move to go private, by merging with an acquisition unit of the Tribune Employee Stock Ownership. Chairman and chief exec Dennis FitzSimons announced he is steping down from his position.
Follow the Media’s Philip Stone takes a look at ACAP, the recently launched Automatic Content Access Protocol designed to help publishers control the way search engines crawl their content. Unfortunately, while many publishers support ACAP, major search engines have yet to adopt it.
Traffic continued to grow at telegraph.co.uk through November, up by 1.7m users, to 12.8m, in third place behind Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mail online.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 20, 2007 at 4:58 PM
The news site metro.co.uk launched its new video-sharing siteMeView. The Dailymotion-like site proposes an engaging concept from the start: users can earn money from the clips they upload.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 20, 2007 at 4:54 PM
MTV owner Viacom signed a $500m (£250m) contract with Microsoft to use its Atlas advertising and content system for the next five years, effectively replacing DoubleClick.
The top triumvirate of Le Monde group jointly resigned last night, after the Society of Journalists of Le Monde (SRM) vetoed the 2007 financial round-up and provisional budget for 2008 for Le Monde’s digital branch, Le Monde Interactif.
On numerous occasions there has been debate as to whether some bloggers could be considered journalists. As many now realize though, the publishing platform, blogs, doesn’t define whether the content is journalism – but can blogs be conducive to online journalism?
In light of the change to the Federal Communications Commission’s rule to media cross-ownership, a paragraph in the Washington Post’s story could be interpreted to imply that media convergence isn’t as attractive to newspaper companies as it once was, say, before the rise of online video. But is media convergence really the past?
Posted byCyril Gros on December 20, 2007 at 3:30 PM
Since people spend a lot of time in public transports, the Press-Gratuite blog argues that the free newspapers turned this “waste of time” into a beneficial market.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 20, 2007 at 3:21 PM
A recently published study about bias in the media, conducted by a Purdue University political sociologist, tends to show American people' lack of trust in the media may lead to less concern about politics.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 20, 2007 at 2:35 PM
Online newspapers can’t ignore the power of search engines as they increasingly rely on the Internet for revenue and audience. But buying keywords to stay on top raises ethical issues when it comes to tragic events, should online newspapers simply behave like moneymakers?
Posted byCyril Gros on December 19, 2007 at 5:46 PM
Nine bloggers from all political sides have gathered to create a group blog, “The Ruckus” on Newsweek.com, which should help the traditional news outlet to cover the US presidential campaign from a new media perspective
Posted byCyril Gros on December 19, 2007 at 5:08 PM
FT.com yesterday published its 10 most-read articles in 2007 on its website. The most popular article deals neither with Madeleine McCann nor the appearance of missing canoeist, instead it's an article about the “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down the Roman empire.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 19, 2007 at 3:43 PM
A new kind of freesheet now circulates in central London. The Notes from the Underground doesn’t deliver any news but only short stories, poems and cartoons.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 19, 2007 at 12:49 PM
As weblogs celebrate their 10th anniversary, the threatened blog network blognation.com seems to be nearing its end. When opening the front page, the statement “Will the last one out please turn off the light” appears besides a light switch…
Posted byCyril Gros on December 19, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Since the website of Zero Hora, brazilian newspaper, was launched in Sep. 2007, its newsroom has been thoroughly integrated, allowing efficient cooperation between the online and print staffs. But the newsroom was officially inaugurated last Friday.
Despite concerns being voiced over the effects of media concentration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Tuesday to change its rules and allow broadcasters in the US’ top 20 markets to also own a newspaper.
According to Philip Stone’s Follow the Media, a couple of Swiss high school students are waging a war against freesheets by collating their own posters on distribution bins. “Instead of a poster promoting the free newspaper’s story and picture of Pamela Anderson the replacement poster read, “0 francs, zero information,” wrote Stone.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 18, 2007 at 5:06 PM
The press agency, Reuters, intends to increase its number of branded partnerships, following the one it recently struck with the International Herald Tribune.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 18, 2007 at 3:26 PM
Spain’s top media company Prisa, announced on Monday it had taken legal action against US-based media firm Nielsen. Prisa charges Nielsen for what it called an “unjustified” downgrade of the group’s audience figures for the website of its newspaper, El Pais.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 18, 2007 at 2:23 PM
The Sports Rights Owners Coalition and the recently created New Media Coalition are disputing their respective interests in the broadcast and the sales of video and photo content taken on sport events.
In the wake of a recent Weblog piece about the need for ombudsmen and public editors, the Chicago Tribune writes a tribute to Douglas Kneeland, its first public editor, who passed away on Dec. 15 of lung cancer.
In a show of ‘edginess’, The New York Times’ “T” fashion magazine published on Dec. 2 a photo-spread of a 17-year-old model adopting highly suggestive sexual poses, which led to some complaints. Was the choice to publish this picture worthy of the Times’ brand name?
Posted byCyril Gros on December 18, 2007 at 11:00 AM
The year 2007 registered the highest level of journalist deaths worldwide since 1994, up to 64, according to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has been tracking journalist deaths since 1981.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 17, 2007 at 5:44 PM
Natalia Morar, an investigative reporter in Moscow for the monthly independent newsmagazine New Time was barred from entry to Moscow on her return from an unrelated press trip to Israel. She was sent to her native country, Moldova without further explanations.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is debating this week on a rule that would allow newspapers and TV stations to buy each other. This could benefit the press as a business, but also potentially lead to a poorer media landscape for the public.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 17, 2007 at 5:13 PM
The media group India Today, which recently created its digital division India Today Group Digital, is planning on the launch of a web portal to span across media, as well as mobile magazines in early 2008.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 17, 2007 at 3:19 PM
The British press now counts numerous business journalists among top positions. Business has grown both as a newspaper section and cultural phenomenon for the last 25 years.
The Web has entirely changed the journalist-reader relationship. Two-way reader interaction is gaining ground through email, comments, SMS, online chats and blog posts, 24/7. This would imply that news outlets increasingly need ombudsmen. Yet there are reportedly fewer than 40 ombudsmen in the US, and few papers are willing to hire one, at a time of general cost-cutting. Maybe they should think about the potential costs of not having an ombudsman, and figure that the readers’ editor is not (only) a guardrail against angry readers. He or she is a bridge into Web 2.0 journalism.
In The Guardian’s review for new media, Jeff Jarvis calls 2007 “the year of Facebook,” as social networking and Facebook were discovered en masse by a wider international community. He also discusses the end of the paywall and the rise of Google.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 17, 2007 at 12:01 PM
A wave of outsourcing will begin in 2008 in the newspaper industry according to a survey of 15 private company executives done by Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginocchio.
In its 2007 review for the press, the Guardian lashes out at the UK press’ agenda, but nuances that these stories “are merely reflecting the tastes and wishes of their customers.”
In his Regret The Error blog, Canadian freelancer Craig Silverman comes back on some of the media’s most noticed mistakes during 2007: among the top were mistakes about US politician Barack Obama, but also a Titanic picture rip-off that went around the world before being caught.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 14, 2007 at 11:27 AM
Fairfax Media has just unveiled the design of its new $110-million headquarters, which will house The Age, 3AW radio, Fairfax Digital and the Melbourne bureaus of the Australian Financial Review and Business Review Weekly.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 14, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Many newspapers have given up on attracting young readers who have moved on to other platforms, instead of moving the newspaper with the young to those new platforms.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 13, 2007 at 4:22 PM
Starting next Wednesday, a new fundsraising association, “Press and Pluralism," will be created in France to help the press develop. Through this association, individual investors as well as firms will be able to make donations to press companies.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 3:29 PM
“Evergreen” describes the stories reporters have to do to fill the paper during holidays, when most everyone else is off and the news is slow. Doing evergreen stories usually causes journalists to groan.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 13, 2007 at 2:34 PM
The first free English-language tabloid daily will be launched in Thailand at the beginning of the next year by an already established Thai newspaper, The Nation.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 1:42 PM
Credit Suisse analyst John Klim has recently produced a report on the newspaper industry that explains things are not as bad as they seem to be. He made the point that the industry downturn is more cyclical than secular, having more to do with economic factors, like real estate softness, than anything inherent to the industry.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 1:19 PM
The Reuters news agency, after just having made a deal with the International Herald Tribune to produce a co-branded online/print business news section for the newspaper, has now partnered with FT.com to supply the financial news website with videos.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 1:12 PM
Business Week has decided to integrate, just a few months after their announcement of a redesign, putting one editor in charge of print and online for each of eight major content areas.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 1:00 PM
The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter has announced the launch of the world's first "newspaper" telephone. The company has created a mobile phone offering the newspaper's subscribers direct and free access to its website.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 12:22 PM
Newspaper political blogs are becoming more and more popular these days, causing bloggers to have to answer to critics and allegations of bias on a daily basis.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 11:58 AM
User comments are becoming more and more popular on online news sites. Even the NY Times is now allowing moderated comments on selected articles. However, do these comments have a place in controversial breaking news stories?
Posted byCyril Gros on December 13, 2007 at 11:25 AM
Search engines are the primary way Internet users navigate to sites within key categories. The latest survey from Hitwise clearly shows Google is in the top of the search engines chart.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 13, 2007 at 10:54 AM
U.S. newspapers are now offering some remarkable online graphic tools to help their readers get an overview of the campaign for the 2008 presidential elections.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 12, 2007 at 4:45 PM
“The role of the journalist is key in bringing trusted information to readers… Print media is going to be the most trusted media in the future,” said information society commissioner Viviane Reding at the recent annual Publishers' Forum in Brussels, where publishers exchanged views with the European Commission.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 12, 2007 at 4:27 PM
The New York Times has decided to publish Web first for a main piece that will not appear in print until Sunday. This comes at a time when many papers are deciding whether to publish Web editions first for Sunday papers or to stick with the tradition of print first on Sundays.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 12, 2007 at 3:53 PM
Glue, an advertising agency, has been selected to work with News Group Newspapers. The company will work on the digital marketing aspects for the group’s tabloid newspapers, The Sun and News of the World, including online advertising, viral campaigns and other web projects.
Posted byEvan Fell on December 12, 2007 at 3:25 PM
In a follow-up interview with the Weblog, founder of the non-profit, mostly online news site MinnPost, Joel Kramer said that although it is still early, it seems to be a sustainable form of news.
“Press freedom is the leftist support,” ironically said French President Nicolas Sarkozy in an interview with Nouvel Observateur, in which he defended himself from having any control over the media.
Digital revenues at regional newspaper group Johnston Press grew 35.3% in the five months to Nov. 30, while print ad revenues declines 0.8% in the same period. The good news is that overall advertising were up 0.2%.
Posted byCyril Gros on December 12, 2007 at 12:41 PM
The Los Angeles Times has recently decided to reestablish hyperlocal reporter “bureaus” in order to improve its local coverage and be closer to its readers' concerns
Posted byCyril Gros on December 12, 2007 at 11:49 AM
The famous media marketplace, Mochila, today announced its wish to improve its syndication space content. The development of the site is based on three main pillars: an agreement with Autonomy Corporation, a partnership with GoDaddy.com and the launch of Mochila Version 4.0.
Would you have named Russian president Vladimir Putin ‘Person of the Year’? Time magazine did, and it explains why.
The news site metro.co.uk launched its new 
Since the website of Zero Hora, brazilian newspaper, was launched in Sep. 2007, its newsroom has been thoroughly integrated, allowing efficient cooperation between the online and print staffs. But the newsroom was officially inaugurated last Friday.
Fairfax Media has just unveiled the design of its new $110-million headquarters, which will house The Age, 3AW radio, Fairfax Digital and the Melbourne bureaus of the Australian Financial Review and Business Review Weekly.
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorsweblog.org%2Fnewsrooms_and_journalism%2F2007%2F12%2Feditorial_why_is_putin_times_p.php&bodytext=<img width="180" hspace="2" height="117" border="0" align="left" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_newspapers/putin.jpg" />Would you have named Russian president <strong>Vladimir Putin</strong> ‘Person of the Year’? <em>Time</em> magazine did, and it explains why.&title=Editorial: why is Putin Time’s Person of the Year?){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorsweblog.org%2Fmultimedia%2F2007%2F12%2Fuk_metro_launches_meview_ugc_v.php&bodytext=<img width="208" hspace="3" height="175" border="0" align="left" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/news/centre-image.jpg" />The news site <strong>metro.co.uk</strong> launched its new <a href="http://www.editorsweblog.org/news/2007/12/metro_launches_mobile_service_two_new_we.php" target="_blank">video-sharing site</a> <strong>MeView</strong>. The <strong>Dailymotion</strong>-like site proposes an engaging concept from the start: users can earn money from the clips they upload.<br /><br />&title=UK: Metro launches MeView, UGC video platform){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorsweblog.org%2Fmultimedia%2F2007%2F12%2Fbrazil_zero_hora_inaugurates_i.php&bodytext=<img width="200" hspace="3" height="132" border="0" align="left" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/news/zero%20hora%20%28web%29.jpg" />Since the website of <em>Zero Hora</em>, brazilian newspaper, was launched in Sep. 2007, its newsroom has been thoroughly integrated, allowing efficient cooperation between the online and print staffs. But the newsroom was officially inaugurated last Friday.&title=Brazil: Zero Hora inaugurates integrated newsroom){kind=link}
![Digg](http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.editorsweblog.org%2Fweb_20%2F2007%2F12%2Ffairfax_media_unveils_new_head.php&bodytext=<img width="200" hspace="2" height="142" border="0" align="left" src="http://www.editorsweblog.org/news/syd-5htxmnqutqg151nbvfy5_layout%5B1%5D.jpg" />Fairfax Media has just unveiled the design of its new $110-million headquarters, which will house <em>The Age</em>, <strong>3AW radio</strong>, <strong>Fairfax Digital</strong> and the Melbourne bureaus of the Australian<em> Financial Review</em> and <em>Business Review Weekly</em>.&title=Fairfax Media unveils new headquarters){kind=link}